Monthly Report, July 2021

It's really good to be able to write an All Shetland monthly report. 

And if I was going to write a one word report it would be "Auks", and the slightly longer (four word) version would be "Auks at Sumburgh Head".

Blue skies over Sumburgh Head

• Reporting Days: 31
  
  
• Location: Entirely ZE3 (with very occasional outings to ZE1& ZE2)
  
  
• Miles walked: 141
  
  
• Miles driven: 363
  
  
• Gardens Tended: 1
  
  
• Puffins Seen: Hundreds (and a lot of other auks too)
  
  
• Orchids Seen: Quite a lot!
  
  
• Photographs Taken: Many thousands

Puffin in the mayweed

July is without doubt the peak time for watching and photographing auks around the south end of Shetland - the four species of auks (guillemot, razorbill, black guillemot and puffin) do their own thing to their own time scales, but July is the point in the season when the youngsters are most visible (and the adults are busiest doing their feeding).

Black guillemot with butterfish

Muttering Puffins

Razorbills plus youngster

Puffling ready to fledge

Adult razorbill

By the end of July the guillemots and razorbills have all gone (there might be 1 or 2 exceptions!), the pufflings have mostly gone and the adult puffins are gathering ready to depart and the tysties (black guillemots) are in the later stages of rearing their young.

Black guillemot nestling

And just in case you were getting the idea that auks are the only thing to lure one to Shetland in the summer - the wild flowers in July are splendid too.

Orchids

Orchids

Bog Asphodel

More orchids

Auks, July 2021

 Auks, I have heard said, are awesome.  And it's very hard to argue with this.

They spend about eight months of the year at sea - and the other four months hanging about (and raising the next generation of auks) on remote cliffs and headlands.  One of the best places to see breeding auks in the UK is the Shetland Islands, and I've been fortunate enough to have spent the last few weeks hanging about on the cliffs and headlands at the south end of Shetland watching as the auk chicks become bigger and bigger and get ready for their first winter at sea.

There are four species of auk that breed at the south end of Shetland - puffins, guillemots, black guillemots and razorbills.  All the pictures here were taken over the last couple of weeks - almost all on the cliffs around the Sumburgh Head lighthouse.

Puffins or, around Shetland, Tammie Norie - without doubt the best known (and most easily recognised) of the auks - by mid July the youngsters (pufflings) look like a black and white version of their very colourful parents, and will (if you are lucky) appear  outside their burrow testing their wings to see if they are ready for that first flight.

At the Burrow

Also available in Black & White

Camouflage?

Guillemots/Longwi - don't really bother with nests and just lay a single egg on the cliff edge. Without a protective burrow to hide in the chicks are vulnerable to predators - the first line of defence being lots of adult birds gathered wing-to-wing. The second line of defence is to get off the cliffs as possible so as soon as they are big enough to swim the youngsters (called jumplings) are summoned into the water by their parents and escorted away from the shore.

All Lined Up

Ready to Jump?

On Top of the Cliff

Black Guillemots/Tysties - are stunning little birds.  They nest in isolated holes in cliffs and it is challenging to find the nests or to even get a glimpse of the chick.  The best bet is to listen for the characteristic high pitched whistle that the adults make - and maybe that'll help you find a nest!

Butterfish Time

I'll come out when I'm ready

Deep in Conversation

Razorbills/Sea Craa - are probably my favourite auk.  This stunning bird - dramatic black and white plumage and an awesome bill - lives in small groups close to either puffin or guillemot colonies and has a single chick that (like the guillemot) jumps to the sea as soon as it can.

Centre of Attention

Beak to Beak

On Look-Out

As far as I'm concerned this has been a fantastic year for auks - at least in terms of the weather and amount of time I've been able to spend with them, it'll be interesting to hear, from the proper surveys, what the official word is. 

Monthly Report, June 2021

As with the May report, this report covers time both in Oxford & Shetland - although it was mostly Oxford, with just a couple of northern days thrown in at the end - but hey, any month where you can see puffins is an OK one.

Puffin (ZE3)

• Reporting Days: 30
  
  
• Location: Mostly OX3, with a wee bit of ZE3
  
  
• Miles walked: 115
  
  
• Mile driven: 555 (almost all involved the journey from OX3 to ZE3)
  
  
• Gardens Tended: 2
  
  
• Puffins Seen: Hundreds (all in the last three days of the month)
  
  
• Orchids Seen: Dozens (new metric!)
  
  
• Photographs Taken: Thousands

The photographic distraction this month was the Wildlife Trusts "30 Days Wild" campaign - their annual encouragement to get in touch with nature via Random Acts of Wildness, in my case being that bit more observant about wildlife (and taking and sharing even more wild-flavoured photographs than usual).

This year (the first June when I've not needed to worry about meetings - real or virtual) felt like a good time to try and improve my orchid spotting skills - and I did manage several orchid days alongside my usual seasonal photographs of birds and wildflowers (and the occasional mammal).

Field Mouse (OX3)

Robin - with lunch (OX3)

Germander Speedwell (OX3)

Fox (OX3)

Pyramidal Orchid (OX3)

Common Spotted Orchid (ZE3)

And it's always nice to end the month with a sunset - even if you need to stay up late to see it at 60N.

22:11, 30th June 2021 (ZE3)

Sorry the report is a bit late this month - those auks and orchids won't photograph themselves.

30 Days Wild - June 2021 (Year 7)

I can't imagine not doing the Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild challenge each year.   

This challenge started in June 2015 with the encouragement to do something a wee bit wild each day for the month - and it's been going ever since (sometimes joined by it's winter partner, to mark the now traditional 12 Wild Days of Christmas).

Each year (for me) a new theme emerges - and I guess with hindsight this year that the theme has been orchids.  I'm starting to understand the enthusiasm that some folks have for these fascinating wee plants.

So, to mark the end of this years 30 Days Wild challenge, a few orchids - mostly around Oxford, but a few Shetlandic ones towards the end of the month. Maybe by next year I'll be able to identify them reliably.

And, orchids aside, my two favourite pictures from the month - a grey squirrel at the C S Lewis Reserve in Oxford, and a puffin amongst the sea pinks at Sumburgh Head on Shetland.

Monthly Report, May 2021

It's good to get the chance to write a monthly report that isn't just walks and pictures from the OX3 postcode.  I am very grateful for the variety of green spaces and choice of walks around the Oxford house - but there aren't any lighthouses, auks or sea views.

• Reporting Days: 31 (including 2 Bank Holidays, which make very little difference to what I'm doing)
  
  
• Location: Mostly Shetland (ZE3)
  
  
• Miles walked: 132
  
  
• Mile driven: 1159
  
  
• Gardens Tended: 3
  
  
• Puffins Seen: Hundreds
  
  
• Photographs Taken: Thousands (mostly auks, or lighthouses or auks at lighthouses)
  
  
• Vaccinations Received: One (now fully AstraZeneca'ed)
  
  
• Cat Count: Zero. Koop appeared in last months report - but sadly at the fine age of 22, the months finally caught up with her.  It seems very strange not to have her pottering around the garden with us.

Back at the Lighthouse, Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Calm, West Voe of Sumburgh, Shetland

Nesting Time, Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Shouting Time, Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Puffins in the Evening Sunshine, Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Black Guillemot (aka Tystie), Scat Ness, Shetland

Razorbill, Sumburgh Head, Shetland

Oxfordshire Bluebells, C S Lewis Reserve, Oxford

Shetland to Oxford, Auks to Orchids: Early Purple Orchids, Sydlings Copse, Oxford

6000 Pictures

Back in December 2004, Tony Blair was British Prime Minister, George W Bush was US President, I was working at The Open University - and I had just bought my first digital camera, a 4 megapixel Fuji FinePix A340. 

Since then the UK has had four new Prime Ministers and US three new Presidents - I've worked at two further universities and I've taken pictures with about a dozen different digital cameras and at least half-a-dozen phones.

So? 

On 24th December 2004 I took a few pictures with my relatively new Fuji camera, including this one... which we'll call Picture of the Day #1

Picture of the Day #1. 24th December 2004. Open University, Milton Keynes.

And since then I've taken at least one photograph every day.  Some of these pictures have been quite good, some have been distinctly mediocre and others have just documented the daily routine.  

The pictures have been my diary and remind me where I was, what I was doing and (in some cases) what my mood was.

These eight pictures were picked at random from the PoD collection (and sorted chronologically!).

PoD#119. 21st April 2005. Thornborough Bridge, Buckingham.

PoD#472. 9th April 2006. Headington, Oxford.

PoD#895. 6th June 2007. Fair Isle, Shetland Islands.

PoD#4114. 29th March 2016. University of Warwick.

PoD#4961. 24th July 2018. Oxford Brookes University.

PoD#5006. 7th September 2018. Coffee Time.

PoD#5246. 5th May 2019. C S Lewis Nature Reserve, Oxford.

PoD#5562. 16th March 2020. Final Commute. Bury Knowle Park, Oxford.

If I was going to pick out eight of my favourite pictures from over the years the selection might be something like this

PoD#625. 9th September 2006. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

PoD#1381. 4th October 2008. Tigers Nest, Bhutan.

PoD#2016. 1st July 2010. Svalbard.

PoD#2545. 12th December 2011. South Georgia Island.

PoD#3523. 16th August 2014. Eilean Donan Castle.

PoD#4735. 10th December 2017. Headington, Oxford.

PoD#4920. 13th June 2018. Sumburgh Head, Shetland Islands.

PoD#5690. 22nd July 2020. Sumburgh Head, Shetland Islands.

And today - Picture of the Day #6000 (which means I've been at this malarky for 16 years, 5 months and a few days). This one taken with a 24MP Sony A7iii.

Picture of the Day #6000. 28th May 2021. Headington, Oxford

My top tips for taking a picture every day.

1. Always have a camera with you, decent phone cameras make this easier now.

2. Take a picture of something first thing in the morning, you'll probably see something more interesting later, but it's good to have something 'in the bag'.

3. Get outside if you can, even if it is just to walk between meetings or to the shops, there are lots more photo opportunities away from the desk and sofa.

4. Label your pictures - there's time and date metadata saved with the photo, but not (usually) useful information about the subject matter. I use Adobe Lightroom to catalog and caption my images - other tools are available.

5. Save your pictures somewhere safe - on another device or in the cloud (or better yet, both).

Follow Me!

My daily pictures usually wind up being posted on Twitter and on Blipfoto (a photo sharing site that encourages - and limits - you to post just one picture a day) - do follow me on one or both of these sites.